1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to household type space heaters adapted to burn most any kind of solid fuel locally available, more particularly wood and/or coal. For the past several years, there has been a popular trend to find a more economical means of heating family residences. With the advent of fuel oil, natural gas, and electrical power becoming more and more expensive, many single and multifamily residences have installed stoves that burn a more readily available fuel and produces heat energy cheaper than that obtainable from public utilities (natural gas, electricity, and fuel oil). The most popular and pervasive of these types of stoves is the old fashion wood burning stove.
Many families have attempted to use a fireplace as a means to supplement their heating requirements and reduce heating cost, only to rediscover the many drawbacks of a fireplace, known only to well to most of the population during colonial times. Simply stated, a fireplace is grossly inefficient, having only a ten to twenty percent effective use of the heat created by the combustion of the wood or coal, the balance being exhausted up the chimney. Furthermore, a fire in a fireplace needs closer attention than one in an enclosed stove or heater, in order to keep sparks from bursting out into the room and causing the unwanted fire to rugs, furniture, clothes, and the like.
An optimum and desirable wood burning stove would not only heat an area approximately two thousand square feet or more but also would do so with a minimum amount of fuel and with a maximum amount of safety. The instant invention accomplishes these desirable goals by providing a chamber in which combustion takes place, completely enclosed and safe so that it can be left unattended with absolute piece of mind. Furthermore, the instant invention has a design that produces a surprising efficiency, such efficiency being a function of the combination of a controlled system in which air is heated. Outside supply air is circulated throughout an air chamber, which completely surrounds the combustion area, where it is first heated. The thus heated air is further heated by being forced through a plurality of pipes (conduits), which form a grate upon which the combustion material is positioned. The heated air is ultimately discharged from such pipes into the space desired to be heated.
2. Summary of the Invention
Disclosed is a hot air heater comprising a first enclosure completely surrounded and spaced apart from a second enclosure, the enclosures positioned in relation to one another to form an air chamber between them. The second enclosure has disposed in it a plurality of conduits (tubes), positioned in a spaced apart relationship one to another and lying in a common plane, there being aligned holes in the first and second enclosures equal in number to the conduits and adapted to receive and receiving terminal portions of the tubes. These terminal portions bridge across the air chamber and may be attached to the first and second enclosures. The second enclosure has additional number of like holes, also adapted to receive and receiving the other terminal portion of the conduits are open to and are in communication with the air chamber. The terminal edge of the other terminal portion of the conduits are open to and in communication with a space that is desired to be heated. A baffle means is located between the first and second enclosures at a position just below where the terminal edges of the conduits are in communication with the air chamber. Located below the baffle means is a means for supplying outside air to the air chamber and circulating the air through the bottom portion of the air chamber, across the terminal portions of the conduits bridging the air chamber, throughout the balance of the chamber until it strikes the baffle and is diverted into the conduits in communication with the chamber, through the conduits (underneath the fuel being combusted) and thence to the outside space that is desired to be heated. Throughout this path the air is heated and is exposed to increasingly higher temperatures, the highest temperature being that of the tubes.